Category Archives: Frugal Living

I’m a planner. I constantly write myself to-do lists and of course, each year I enjoy setting goals and New Year’s Resolutions. This year, I made a few different resolutions. A few of them were financially related, like participating in The Spending Fast, paying down student loan debt, and trying to work on saving more… but I also had a goal of exercising.

You could argue that as a teacher of 10 children between the ages of 2 and 3, I get a fair amount of exercise chasing toddlers around. But I did want to get involved in some sort of fitness outside of work. I looked back on the different types of fitness I’d done before, and I decided that I didn’t want to spend the money on a gym membership (had one in college I only used when I went with friends, had one at my previous job, never used it although I worked there for eight months) and that although just getting outside and running is a great inexpensive way to work out, I really haven’t been successful there either. I committed to running on a team and doing part of a marathon, and even knowing that I had a race to look towards, I didn’t really work hard to exercise then either.

But I looked at what I had enjoyed. Any sort of class that involved a group of people is what I seemed to enjoy. I was part of a cheerleading team for a while, which kept me fit, and was also a team sport I seemed to like. My sophomore year of college, my boyfriend at the time convinced me to join his Muay Thai kickboxing class, which I ended up doing for a year and loving.

And then I heard about Derby Lite. Derby Lite according to their website, is “Roller Skating for Fun & Fitness” and a “high energy class where you learn to skate a la roller derby without the impact or competition.” Derby Lite includes a warm up, on skate skills and drills, exercises to work on upper body strength, and stretches to help you cool down. It sounded like it had the excitement I liked in my fitness classes and would allow me to also meet new people in the city where I had just started working a few months ago.

Like any large purchase, I thought it over. I made sure it would work in my schedule, and gathered opinions from some of my close friends and family members. Then I really sat down and looked at my income for the months of February, March, and April (when the class would take place). Even with saving and trying to pay down extra on my student loans, it seemed very affordable when the cost was divided per class, and knowing that I wasn’t spending needlessly taking a trip to Target every few days (since I had started The Spending Fast) made it seem worth the splurge.

Xin Lu, Senior Writer at Wise Bread, a frugal living website recently wrote an article about “Why You Should Allow Yourself Splurges” where she shared some pretty good reasons for splurging. It’s a break of your routine and can have long term benefits, like the benefit of better health, in the case of splurging on a fitness class! It’s also reinforcing that even if I am spending money to pay down debt, I can still treat myself every now and again, so I can be motivated to save even more!

Have you splurged on any purchases lately?

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